1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal that prevents excessive displacement of an elastic contact portion due to the distortion of a mating terminal, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional female terminal that is disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open No. 7-42005 is equipped with a bottom wall, a pair of side walls that have been substantially vertically bent from the bottom wall, and upper walls that have been bent from upper ends of the side walls so as to become parallel with the bottom wall. A part of the bottom wall is bent to form an elastic contact portion while a part of the upper wall is bent to form an elastic receiving surface portion opposing the elastic contact portion. A part of the bottom wall is raised by cutting to thereby form an excessive-displacement-preventing piece, an upper end of that is situated in the vicinity of a bottom surface of the elastic contact portion. On both sides of an upper end of the excessive-displacement-preventing piece there are respectively provided protruding portions, that are inserted into holes respectively formed in the side walls.
When a male terminal is inserted into between the elastic contact portion and the elastic receiving surface portion, the elastic contact portion is elastically deformed. As a result of this, the insertion of the male terminal is permitted. And the male terminal come. into contact with the elastic contact portion and the elastic receiving surface portion under a prescribed level of pressure. When the male terminal is inserted from an inappropriate direction and as a result the elastic contact portion has received a load resulting from a distortion, etc., the excessive-displacement-preventing piece comes into contact with the elastic contact portion to thereby prevent excessive displacement thereof.
However, in the above-described terminal, in order to increase the strength of the excessive-displacement-preventing piece, the protruding portions are inserted in the holes of the side walls. Accordingly, precise working is needed to be done so that the protruding portions and the holes may positionally coincide with each other. Simultaneously, a complex operation of inserting the protruding portions into the holes is needed to be performed. This adversely affects the productivity.
Also, the terminal is of a structure wherein the load from the elastic contact portion is received by the protruding portions of the excessive-displacement-preventing piece. And the load is input along the thickness direction of the protrusion. Therefore, when having received an excessive load, the protruding portion is deformed with the result that there is the possibility that excessive displacement will not be prevented.
Thereupon, an object of the present invention is to provide a terminal that is easy to manufacture and enables reliably preventing the elastic contact portion from being excessively displaced.
To achieve the above object, a terminal according to the present invention has a bottom wall, a pair of side walls, an upper wall, an elastic contact portion that is freely elastically deformable in a direction substantially vertical with respect to the bottom wall, an elastic receiving surface portion that opposes the elastic contact portion, an excessive-displacement-preventing piece, and a deformation-preventing stopper. The side walls respectively rise from both ends of the bottom wall. The upper wall extends from at least one of the side walls to over the bottom wall and opposes the bottom wall. The elastic contact portion and the excessive-displacement-preventing piece are arranged on one of the bottom wall and the upper wall while the elastic receiving surface portion is arranged on the other of them. The excessive-displacement-preventing piece is close to the elastic contact portion and comes into contact with the elastic contact portion to prevent excessive displacement of the elastic contact portion. The deformation-preventing stopper is extended from at least one of the side walls. The deformation-preventing stopper comes into contact with the excessive-displacement-preventing piece to prevent deformation thereof. To this end, the deformation-preventing stopper is disposed close to the excessive-displacement-preventing piece.
According to this construction, when the amount of deformation of the elastic contact portion that has received the load reaches a prescribed value, the elastic contact portion contacts with the excessive-displacement-preventing piece, whereby any further deformation of the excessive-displacement-preventing piece is prevented. In this condition, when the load applied to the elastic contact portion increases, the excessive-displacement-preventing piece comes into contact with the deformation-preventing stopper, whereby this stopper prevents the deformation of the excessive-displacement-preventing piece. Since the deformation-preventing stopper is only needed to be so provided from the side wall as to exist near the excessive-displacement-preventing piece, it is possible to manufacture the terminal easily. In addition, it is also possible to prevent the excessive displacement of the elastic contact portion.
An end surface of the deformation-preventing stopper may come into contact with the excessive-displacement-preventing piece to prevent deformation thereof. And the width of the deformation-preventing stopper may be greater than the thickness thereof.
According to this construction, in the deformation-preventing stopper, the direction in that the load is applied from the excessive-displacement-preventing stopper coincides with the width direction of the deformation-preventing stopper. As a result of this, the deformation-preventing stopper receives the load with its width dimension greater than its thickness dimension. Therefore, the deformation-preventing stopper does not deform even with respect to the load in excess and so can prevent excessive displacement of the elastic contact portion even with respect thereto.